sea grape

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sea grape (countable and uncountable, plural sea grapes)

1. A small tree, Coccoloba uvifera, that grows on sandy beaches in tropical America; it has clusters of purple fruit.
   • 1941 March 12, Charles A. Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1970, page 461:

     Most of Indian Key seems to be swamp, covered with mangrove roots. But there is a small gravel beach where we landed, and a few yards inland we found a sheltered spot on dry ground for the tent. We pitched it under a sea-grape tree.

2. A leafless plant found in sandy soils along the coast and inland from southern and central Europe to central Asia, Ephedra distachya, which has edible fruit and is harvested for the ephedrine found in its green stems.
3. (UK, Ireland) Any plant in the genus Ephedra, especially those native to Europe and neighboring parts of Africa and Asia.
4. Seaweeds in the genus Caulerpa, eaten in Southeast Asia, especially Caulerpa lentillifera and Caulerpa racemosa.
5. Gulfweed, a kind of brown alga (Sargassum).
6. The clusters of gelatinous egg capsules of a squid (Loligo).
7. Any animal in the genus Molgula, bottom-dwelling sea squirts that look like peeled grapes.

• sea grape on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “sea grape”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “sea grape”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

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